Historical Note

During and after his employment as a salesman and regional sales manager with Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company in Duluth, Minnesota, Mr. Rangeloff began collecting the gambling and sales promotion devices known as punchboards. In 1999-2000, he donated a large and representative selection of punchboards to the Archives Center, along with a small body of business papers.

The term "punchboard" (or in some cases "punch board", "push board", "punchcard", or "pushcard") refers to a gambling device popular in the United States from roughly 1910 until 1970. Punchboards could be used for fundraising, sales promotion and gambling - sometimes all at once. Punchboards were typically found in places where men gathered socially, such as bars, pool halls, barber shops and mens' clubs. Punchboards also could be found in beauty parlors, drug stores and other small retail establishments. With their promise of easy money, punchboards enjoyed great success during the Depression, and continued to enjoy popularity during and after World War II. According to Scarne's Complete Guide to Gambling (New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 1961), approximately 30 million punchboards were sold between 1910 and 1915. Scarne estimated that 50 million punchboards were sold in 1939 alone, at the peak of their popularity. Punchboard sales declined significantly after WWII, and by the mid-1970s the boards had been outlawed in most states.

Punchboards trace their lineage to 18th century lottery game boards. These handmade boards, with the winning ticket placed by the operator, offered no safeguards against corruption, however, and their misuse may have contributed to the game's waning popularity. In 1905, C.A. Brewer and C.G. Scannell patented a new version of the traditional game. By 1910, modern manufacturing techniques, including the invention of board stuffing machines and ticket folding machines, contributed to the reinvigoration of the punchboard. The new punchboards were constructed of cardboard, with a sheet of paper or foil covering both front and back of the board. This covering was intended to prevent the operator from discovering where the winning tickets were or otherwise tampering with the board. Cheap, portable, disposable, and offering a ready vehicle for advertising, punchboards are an exuberant, if ephemeral, expression of 20th century mass culture.

A modern punchboard typically consists of a square or rectangular piece of pressed wood or cardboard (from ½ inch to one inch in thickness) in which hundreds or thousands of holes have been drilled in a regular pattern, then loaded with tiny slips of rolled or folded paper. Each slip of paper had a number or symbol printed on it. Both front and back of the board were covered with a foil or paper seal. The front of the board typically featured some form of attention-getting commercial imagery and a chart listing the winning number or combination of numbers and symbols, along with the prizes or cash amounts to be awarded to the winners. The boards were sold with a metal stylus or "punch" for the players to use.

A player paid the punchboard's operator a set amount of money (typically a nickel, dime or quarter) for a chance to use a metal stylus to break the seal on the hole of his choice, and "punch" one of the slips of paper out of the board. If the number or symbols found on the slip of paper matched one of the pre-determined winning combinations, the player was awarded the corresponding prize.

Punchboard manufacturers sold the boards blank or preprinted. Blank boards were sold to "jobbers" or salesmen who then added their own imagery or advertisement, and many surviving punchboards feature advertisements for products that were inexpensive and had mass appeal, such as peanuts, candy and cigarettes. Some of these boards offered the advertised product as the prize; these came to be known as prizeboards. Some prizeboards were constructed with a shadow box meant to contain prizes such as rhinestone sunglasses, wristwatches, Bowie knives or even handguns. Punchboard manufacturers also sold the board pre-printed with various kinds of commercial imagery - sports, gambling, and patriotic imagery were well-represented, as were folk figures, racial and ethnic stereotypes, and the ubiquitous pin-up girls. Most of these boards were played for cash.

Scope & Content

The collection includes several dozen punchboards, all unpunched and in very good to excellent condition, and featuring a range of products and imagery. The collection includes two punchboard manufacturer's catalogs from the 1940s, which detail the money-making opportunities for jobbers and retailers.

The collection also contains correspondence, employment forms, promotional literature, photographs and sales training literature from Evan "Ding" Rangeloff's early career as a sales representative and regional sales manager for Liggett and Myers Tobacco Company. Of particular interest are sales training manuals which explore the psychology of selling in the 1950s, manuals which detail sales cigarette marketing strategies at military bases and on Indian reservations, and materials relating to L&M's sponsorship of Formula One car racing in the 1970s.

Arrangement

The collection is arranged in four series:

Series 1: Business Records, ca. 1954-1991

Series 2: Photographs, ca. 1920-1970

Series 3: Sales Training Literature, ca. 1955-1957, 1974, 1979

Series 4: Punchboards, ca. 1910-1970

Provenance

Donated to the Archives Center of the National Museum of American History by Evan Rangeloff of Duluth, Minnesota, in October 1999.

Processing Note

Collection organized and finding aid prepared by Mimi Minnick, March 2000. The historical portion of this text is based on material from Punchboard.com (http://www.punchboard.com) and is reprinted with the kind permission of Punchboard.com, courtesy Marcus Stafford.

Container List

Box

Folder

Contents

SERIES 1: BUSINESS PAPERS

1

1

correspondence in re employment of salesmen, 1954-1965

2

employment forms, n.d.

3

record of salesmen employment, n.d.

4

list of salesmen [?], n.d.

5

expense account reports, 1956-1957

6

expense reports, 1980-1981

7

automobile preventive maintenance order book, 1990-1991

8

letterhead, n.d.

9

"Ding" Rangelhoff business cards, n.d.

10

retail cigarette order forms, n.d

11

retail cigarette order forms, n.d.

12

promotional stickers: Chesterfield, n.d.

13

promotional stickers: Decade, n.d.

14

promotional stickers: Eve, n.d.

15

promotional stickers: L&M, n.d.

16

items from Duluth Herald, Duluth News Tribune, ca. 1963

17

3-D point of sale display, L&M cigarettes, n.d.

18

Pyramid ad slicks, n.d.

19

L&M bridge book, ca. 1961

20

L&M Close-up television advertising, September 1966

21

Marketing Dimensions newsletter, October 1969

22

L&M, Chesterfield promotional notepads, ca. 1970

23

"A Little Something About Can-Am Racing", 1971

24

Lola Racing news, September 1971

1

25

L&M Grand Prix/Donnybrooke sponsorship, 1972

26

Sales Promotion Competition Winners, 1973

27

price list, March 1974

28

Annual Report, 1975-1976

SERIES 2: PHOTOGRAPHS

29

photographs: Velvet salesman's car, ca. 1920s

30

photographs: store displays, ca. 1940s

31

photographs: salesmen; promotional events, ca. 1960s

32

photographs: punchboards

SERIES 3: SALES TRAINING LITERATURE, 1955-1957, 1974, 1979, n.d.

2

1

Effective Salesmanship, sections 1-4, 1955

2

Effective Salesmanship, sections 5-9, 1955

3

Practical Character Analysis, sec. 1-3, 1955

4

Effective Salesmanship Exams, n.d.

5

Effective Salesmanship Exams, 1956-1957

6

"Buyers Mental Steps to Consent", n.d.

7

The Science of Persuasion, n.d.

"Liggett & Myers field sales personnel who are seeking a broader and deeper understanding of the psychology of persuasion will find much in the way of practical guidance in this little book..."

8

Military and Institutional Sales Policy and Procedures Manual, 1974

"This manual is intended as a basic Policy and Procedural manual to familiarize the Field Sales Force with the Military and Institutional business ... [including] background, objectives, distribution, pricing information, shelving, promotions and ordering."

9

New Sales Representative Training Program, n.d.

2

10

"Three Minute Time Test: How Do You Receive Communications?", n.d.

3

1

PPMA: Programmed Instruction Manual, ca. 1979

"This programmed learning manual is designed to serve as an overall guide to our competitors shelving programs..."

2

Communication and Education for Industry: Professional Selling guide, (c)1968

3

Liggett & Myers Creative Promotion Aids, ca. 1960s

"...a complete year-round promotion program designed to create sales advantages for [retailers]! CPA features supermarket-proved themes for the following special sales events and holidays..."